Bought Reese class III. now looking at trans cooler

[Coaster]

yesterday the receiver i have been watching went on sale so i bought it. Reese class III for astro (and many others). i will be removing the class 1 or 2 off my astro and hurling it (i have never used it).

looking at tranny coolers and i see the tru cool 4490 http://www.bulkpart.com/2/product/tru-c ... /4490.html is pretty beefy but wonder if the 4454 may be better suited to my climate (damn cold in the winter. occasionally hovers around -38F for a month. this year we got off scott free)

4.3L stock engine.

also planning on bagging the rear and possibly replacing monoleaf with steel. cant find many astros in the yards here though, i found ONE 2000 picked clean. i cant believe how empty the yards are; yards once full of 30YO cars are empty.

plan to pull 6x10 tandem on occasion but usually smaller. probably need truck tires to (i have p-tires now)

[RECox286]

Far as I know, any cooler will do the job. If you are really that concerned, add two valves in the cooler lines

to act as a bypass for really cold wx. Savy ?

Uncle Bob

[Coaster]

well i got the hitch that was on there off in about 20 min with PB BLASTER, impact wrench and a breaker bar.

so far not very impressed with my reese 37042 hitch. only uses 4 holes in the van to mount and i have to drill two holes in my existing bumper brackets. i cant get a tool to tighten the nuts on these new holes as they are blocked by the bumper bracket and hitch bracket. this hitch does not use the rear leaf spring "frame" rails - just the unibody area between the barn doors and suspension rails.

not sure what i am going to do. i really dont see how to get this one on; i drilled the holes and used the rectangle plates to go inside the unibody holes but i cant get a tool on the nuts so i cant tighten them.

[Leeann_93]

Don't know about your Reese, but my Draw Tite replaces the bumper brackets, bolting in their place.

Top bolt above is the left-most bolt below.

[Coaster]

yeah thats a lot nicer then mine.

to anyone even thinking about buying the receiver i bought - DONT.

the box says 20 min to an hour install time. took me 2 whole days.

its in but its a bad design - several of the bolts are blocked by its own brackets and 2 of them took me several hours to figure out how to tighten. took a lot of ujoint sockets and several assemble/disassemble. very frustrating

do not buy this receiver.

[Coaster]

oh, one more thing - there has been some questions about whether or not you have to drill to install this - you DO have to drill two holes through the bumper brackets - this is not easy. i used a drill press, pilot bit and then a step bit. going at a good pace it took me around 12 minutes to drill each hole to size without burning up my bits or drill press. i could have gone faster at my expense but that bracket is thick (maybe 3/16"?) and you really need a 3/4" hole for wiggle room and adjustment.

[Leeann_93]

You need to drill? That's just plain stupid. There are 6 existing bolt holes they could have used, as Draw-Tite did.

[Coaster]

i know. its a poor design. i hope folks find this thread in the future and dont make my mistake again.

[Corsemoto]

Sounds like you have one of the generic "fits all" type. The vehicle specific models from Hidden Hitch and Draw-Tite install without issue.

[thegreenmachine]

I'm lucky mine came with the hitch that leeann93 was describing, but I've learned ( for you lifted guys )

those big jack-all jacks fit nice and secure through the bumper brackets if you have no hitch.....

[Coaster]

well i towed with it today fir the first time, just a short haul to move some equipment about 5 miles. i rented a 5x8 uhaul. it went well. i had around 1000 pounds in the trailer and no idea what the trailer itself weighs.

need to buy the tranny cooler.

the receiver i installed seems to be working fine. the drop bar is a little sloppy in the receiver and makes a LOTof noise with an empty trailer. completely quiet loaded.

also m yblinkers worked weird with the trailer hooked up. the blink rate and duration was a lot more rude and abrupt. it all worked, but the flashes were extremely brief and it seemed weird. after i unhooked it went back to normal.

next up: tranny cooler.

[AstroWill]

Thermal flashers are affected by current change. If you replace your normal thermal unit with an electronic flasher the flash rate will stay the same. The usually say LED compatible or something like that.

[rolloffdave]

I wish I would've seen this before cargo crawler recommended the Reese and bought the drawtite but I'm already half way done. The instructions said nothing about needing a 19 mm i only have up to 17 and I'll have to go get some swivel sockets and extensions for that carriage bolt that come s through the drilled hole. It's not a big deal I'm just out in a Wal-Mart parking lot and my drill I borrowed battery died a couple times lol.

[RECox286]

19mm = 3/4" As for the rest, sometimes it just pays to have specialty twisters like swivel sockets, etc.

You never know what kind of situations you'll run into. That is why it costs so much to be professional

mechanic. However, once you have the tools and equipment, jobs will become quicker and easier.

Keep on truck'n

Uncle Bob

[rolloffdave]

I guess it doesn't hurt to add a few tools to my collection. I just want to thank cargo crawler 97 for the recommendation it pretty much bolted up . I mean I guess u could complain about having to drill a couple holes but then you d probably look like a lil *****.lol